Abstract

This article studies the production of heterosexuality as a default setting in a language classroom. Using observations in a year 8 Swedish class as a method for data production, the focus is on the production of sexuality in the interaction between the teacher, the pupils and the teaching material in the classroom work with three short stories. The aim is to problematize the way heterosexuality is being reproduced as taken for granted, both through the content of the short stories and through the interaction in class around the stories. The analyses shows that the continuous unmarked presence of heterosexual narratives serve as a default background in the short stories and is followed up in the teaching in its focus on the dramaturgic aspects of writing a short story rather than on the meaning making aspects of writing and reading. The practices of taking heterosexuality for granted reproduce heterosexuality as a default in the classroom, which reproduces it as normative, whilst also creating a pedagogical leeway.